Chuwi’s new Hi12 metal keyboard dock landed in the office today, here’s the unboxing and hands-on video as well as a comparison to the old plastic model.
You can get this new keyboard from Gearbest here for $39
Some of my first impressions of the new and improved Hi12 keyboard:
- Typing experience has drastically improved thanks to a more rigid keyboard with no flex when typing.
- The trackpad still has no settings to disable gestures.
- The new trackpad feels more accurate and smoother. The added height is a definite improvement.
- The overall feel and build is much better now thanks to a metal top half.
- It slots into place easier, but if you pick up just the tablet, the keyboard could drop out.
- Harder to tip over thanks to more of a counterweight. But it’s heavier at 865 grams / 1.9 pounds.
- USB 2 ports work just as before.
- Thinner than the plastic dock at the front and designed to look slimmer on the sides.
- Build quality is similar to the HiBook keyboard, but not as rigid.
- When fully reclined doesn’t sit flat. Some flex on the right-hand side when the tablet screen is pushed right back. (Later fixed bending the keyboard a little)
While not a perfect keyboard, it looks much better and it’s better to type on. I’m happy with it so far.
New Hi12 dock images:
Darragh
Can you please tell me how to fix the warping In the keyboard
thanks, Darragh
Christos
I just received the new metal keyboard. I put the tablet on it and managed to open it at the 120° working angle after considerable effort. I then removed the Chuwi from the keyboard and tried to turn the hinges by hand. No way. I figured that it was meant to be so tight and replaced the tablet on the dock .Howevere, after just 4 opening-closing cycles I discovered that the keyboard has permanently lost connection at the 120° position (fully open) , since there is now a considerable amount of play at the joint.I do not care about the keyboard as I will be asking for a replacement, but I am worried that the hinges have deformed the tablet inlets, rendering them useless for dock use. Has this happened to anyone else?
Jonathan
I find it dissapointing that the layout isn’t as shown at Geekbuying: i.e. there’s no dedicated page up/page down keys and there’s a menu key on the right instrad of a CTRL key.
is there a use for the menu key that I’m missing? All my Dell devices have the CTRL key and no menu key at all so clearly they don’t rate the menu key either.
Jonathan
*instead*
WRH
Is the track pad still unusable like the original due to incorrect driver and uncontrollable gestures?
Ben
There’s a fix in the forum that disables that shortcuts linked to the gestures. It works for me.
http://techtablets.com/forum/topic/soft-solution-to-disableoverride-touchpad-windows-gestures/
WRH
Well kind of a fix, but it doesn’t let you control the gestures, just disables some of them.
The problem isn’t that Chuwi doesn’t have a proper driver, the problem is they use a hardware ID HID that equates to a generic mouse, not a track pad.
Chris G
Gestures are still a pain, but it’s much better with this trackpad. And you can use the fix posted by Mickey Y linked below.
Ben
Thanks Chris!
Which site did you buy the keyboard from?
Chris G
I got it from GearBest here: http://goo.gl/uQWqVt
Ben
Thanks!
i’ll grab one too. maybe u should create a fun video on what u can do with the old keyboard… like one of those “will it blend” videos